• Your feedback is appreciated — please leave comments on any of the posts.• To find specific rock features or look up movie titles, TV shows, actors and production people, see the "LABELS" section — the long alphabetical listing on the right side of the page, below.• To join the MAILING LIST, send me an email at iversonmovieranch@gmail.com and let me know you'd like to sign up.• I've also begun a YouTube channel for Iverson Movie Ranch clips and other movie location videos, which you can get to by clicking here.• Here's a link to Garden of the Gods, the best-known section of the Iverson Movie Ranch (featured in the movie "Stagecoach," the "Lone Ranger" TV show and hundreds of other productions).• To go right to the great Iverson cinematographers, click here.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Here's a photo that never fails to amuse me. It's a grainy, low-res screen shot from the "Lone Ranger" movie (shot in 1949 for the TV series, edited into a feature film in 1952). Now, you may not see the same thing I see, but I can't help but see a nearly perfect side view of a llama's head and neck. It's just to the left of the rider, hovering above the smooth white rock at the far left.

Here's a detail shot of the Llama.

Silver, the Lone Ranger's horse, rehabbing in Silverland in the movie "The Lone Ranger," filmed in 1949.

Directly above the horse is Silver Rock, also known as the Manta Ray.

That smooth white rock, by the way, is a feature I called the Manta Ray early in my research, and later came to call Silver Rock in honor of the Lone Ranger's horse, Silver. I originally called this area the Manta Ray's Garden, before learning that it had already been called Silverland for some time, in recognition of the fact that it is the area where the Lone Ranger nursed a wounded Silver back to health in the movie and TV series.

This empty concrete basin is what occupies Silverland today.

As much as I've always wanted to get a look at that "llama" in real life, the sad reality is that most of the rocks in the above screen shots have been destroyed, giving way to a mysterious project that was once described to me (accurately or not) as an attempt at a sewage facility that was built as part of the adjacent mobile home park and apparently never worked out. These days an empty concrete reservoir occupies the location.

Monday, April 12, 2010

I'm always finding faces in the rocks, and here's a pair of characters I spotted on a visit a while back to the Upper Iverson. They're in the top left corner of the photo. These rocks are located in the South Rim area where much of the filming took place for the old Westerns. I've amped up the contrast here because the original photo is pretty dark. I always seem to be fighting tough lighting conditions at Iverson — I just don't get up as early as the old film crews did, what can I say? These rocks would be better lit in the morning, but then the faces would probably disappear too.

Here's a detail shot from the above photo — not that it adds any clarity. But in case you're having trouble finding them in the larger photo, these are the faces I'm talking about.

The faces change as you shift camera angles and as the sunlight changes. In the above shot, the "pixie" on the left looks pretty much the same as in the previous shot, but the one on the right has a completely new face — seemingly having grown a beard.

Here's what I mean by two different faces for that pixie on the right.

"Wagon Tracks West" (1943)

While it's rare to find the Pixies in movies or TV shows, they do appear on occasion — although I've never seen a production that shows off their "faces." In the above example from the Republic B-Western "Wagon Tracks West," one of the Pixies can be seen in the background of a shot featuring the Miner's Cabin.

Here's the same screen shot with the Pixie spotlighted. "Wagon Tracks West" starred Wild Bill Elliott and Gabby Hayes, with camera work by the legendary Reggie Lanning — a member of my pantheon of great Iverson cinematographers.

For anyone familiar with the 1970s space rock group Gong, these characters and others at Iverson remind me of the Pothead Pixies from Daevid Allen's mythological drawings on the old Gong albums.

Here's an idea of what the Pothead Pixies look like on the Gong/Daevid Allen album covers.

Reel Cowboys of the Santa Susanas

I'm searching for information on the great cinematographers of the B-movie era

I want to honor the legacy of the cinematographers and other production people who worked in relative obscurity during the heyday of the B-Western and the Saturday matinee serial. If you have information about any DPs, directors, production managers or other behind-the-scenes people involved in making B-movies, serials or early TV shows from the silent era through the 1960s — especially those involved in location work and anyone who may have worked at the Iverson Movie Ranch — I would love to hear from you.

With the exception of the most high-profile figures from this period — movie stars and prominent directors, mainly — I have been able to dig up precious little information on the talented people who shaped our movie history and our culture through low-budget, independent productions. I think it would be tragic to allow their legacies to fade from memory while there are still people around — a few, anyway — who can tell their stories.

I would especially like to hear from the survivors — spouses, friends, co-workers, children, grandchildren and beyond — of those who played a role in making movies at Iverson, as well as anyone who is around who has his or her own memories of Iverson.

I have a special interest in cinematographers — the men who aimed their cameras at Iverson's dramatic rock formations, among other things, and thereby recorded the ranch's legacy for posterity. I hope to hear from anyone who might be able to help flesh out their biographical information and gain insights into what made them tick.

Here are some of the cinematographers I would like to find out more about:

Want to see more Iverson Movie Ranch photos? Click on the picture of Hawk Rock, below, to go to the Iverson Movie Ranch photo page on Flickr.

What's that photo at the top of the page?

The black-and-white photo used as the page header is a screen shot from "Fury at Showdown," a 1957 feature from Robert Goldstein Productions starring John Derek, John Smith and Carolyn Craig. The film's director is Gerd Oswald, with cinematography by Oscar winner Joseph LaShelle.

The gargoyle-like figure that looms above the rider is Wrench Rock, a favorite among fans of the Iverson Movie Ranch. In the early days of my Iverson research I called it Bobby, and that name still appears in some places. The rock was traditionally called Indian Head, which unfortunately is a name that has been given to a number of rocks at Iverson.

Wrench Rock is located on what was the Upper Iverson, in the heavily filmed South Rim area, and can still be seen there today, although its "best side" — the view seen at the top of this page — is now blocked by a tree.

The rock is also sometimes called Upper Indian Head to distinguish it from the well-known Indian Head located on the Lower Iverson, in Garden of the Gods.